Nowhere to Hide
Authors: Sigmund Brouwer
HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
Cover by Left Coast Design, Portland, Oregon
Cover photo © PlusONE / Shutterstock
NOWHERE TO HIDE
Copyright © 2015 Sigmund Brouwer
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brouwer, Sigmund
Nowhere to hide / Sigmund Brouwer.
pages cm
Sequel to: Dead man's switch.
Summary: High school senior computer experts William King and Blake Watt are picked up by the authorities to help them track down a father who has failed to make child-support payments, but as they learn more about the man they are searching for, they discover the true nature of their mission and learn the scary reason why they were chosen.
ISBN 978-0-7369-1748-3 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-7369-6306-0 (eBook)
[1. ComputersâFiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.B79984No 2015
[Fic]âdc23
2014034676
All rights reserved.
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Contents
Also from Sigmund Brouwer and Harvest House Publishers
On the morning that William Lyon Mackenzie King was betrayed by his father, drizzle blanketed the island, softening the light that filtered through the windows of his mother's workshop. She sat at a potter's wheel, working clay, molding it with wet hands, humming to herself as if King weren't sitting across from her on a cane-backed chair, leaning forward on his knees.
King felt as if the drizzle pressed a sanctuary upon them. Here on McNeil Island, it was quiet. Across the cold, deep waters of the southern end of Puget Sound, the Tacoma urban sprawl clawed its way north to connect with Seattleâa fabric of asphalt weaving frenzied lives, clusters of houses and apartments, and the endless signs of commercial properties competing for attention. There were no scheduled ferries from McNeil Island, no towns there, and only a few roads connecting the forty or so families who lived in identical houses overlooking identical gardens.
Yet McNeil Island was not the perfect sanctuary.
The houses were provided to employees of the prison on the island, which held some of the most violent men in the federal system. King wished he could believe the prison would always remain secure,
protected as it was by massive walls, electronic surveillance, and thermal scanners.
He knew better. His mother, Ella, had nearly died because of the prison and the violent people in it. Since then, King could no longer walk carefree among the woods and pastures that had once seemed so idyllic. Only in Ella's workshop at the back of the houseâwhere he could watch her at the wheel and listen to her hum in contentmentâwas King truly soothed of anxiety.
On this morning, the drizzle provided an extra layer of comfort. It shielded King from thoughts of the prison inmates and the imperfect men who guarded them. It buffered him from the world across Puget Sound, where Ella had spent weeks in a hospital in a coma. Here, King could see that his mother was safe, and he could cherish the illusion that the world outside did not exist.
The muted sound of cuckoo clocks from the house reached them, and Ella stopped humming, cocked her head, and smiled. King smiled with her. The cuckoo clocks were her idiosyncrasy. During the long weeks while she was across Puget Sound and alone in a coma, King and his father had let the cuckoo clocks wind down. During her absence, the cheerful sounds had been unbearable reminders of their shared loss.
“Cuckoo clocks,” Ella said to King. She pushed back wisps of blonde hair that had fallen across her forehead. “That's something you won't hear at college. I'm going to miss you a lot. But you know that, right? I tell you that every day.”
King had been homeschooled, a necessity because of the small population of the island. He'd been working hard to finish high school a year early. Everyone on the island knew of his vow to escape the island and chase big dreams.
“I've been thinking,” King said. “You're able to do what you want from here on the island. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing for me.”
Ella made pottery, decorated and glazed it, and then offered it for
sale online. She shipped her orders once a week and collected her money through PayPal. The Internet, as she said, put the whole world at her fingertips, and customers from Hong Kong to Amsterdam had proven her right.
“King,” she laughed, “you'd go crazy if you stayed here.”
He was beginning to believe the opposite was true, but he didn't dare tell her.
“You're too much like your dad,” she said. “Mack was a wild oneâneeded to ramble and roam for a while.”
That was part of the family legend, how Mack had been tamed by falling instantly in love with her.
All his life, King had loved thinking he would grow into the same strength and stubbornness that Mack possessed. Lately, however, that had felt like a burden. He needed to be himself, and if that meant delaying for a while the dreams of going out and tackling the worldâ¦
Those thoughts brought a physical reaction that King was learning to dread. His heart rate started climbing, and his lungs emptied of air. He drew in shallow gasps, hoping his mother wouldn't notice.
That's when Mack knocked on the door and walked in without waiting for an answer. Broad face. Broad shoulders. Mackenzie William KingâMack to everyone, including King, who'd been calling his dad Mack ever since King could swing a small baseball bat at the lobs Mack had loved tossing in the backyard.
Mack usually had a broad grin too. But not this morning.
King would realize later that the small twist of expression on Mack's face was a result of a father about to betray a son. But that realization would come too late for King to avoid the consequences.
“King,” Mack said. “There's a helicopter on the way. Evans says your friends need you in the city.”
A helicopter.
The skin at the base of King's throat began to tingle and then burn. He knew it was yet another symptom he would have to hide because both of his parents were watching to see how he would react to the news.
King willed his exterior into stillness. Inside, however, his heart began to rev in an all-too-familiar pattern. A numbness began to run up the inside of each of his legs, and his abdomen began to tighten so hard he felt as if it would cramp.